Barrow / Cairn Cemetery

Miscellaneous

A diffuse group of 8 bowl barrows scattered across Week Street Down, north of the terminal of the Dorset Cursus (Linear 41). The individual barrows are all recorded separately (see ST 91 SE 166-173). They can probably be identified with seven barrows opened by Charles Warne on 8th September 1848. However, Warne left insufficient detail to allow correlation between his excavation records and particular barrows (and note also the more recent recognition of 3 further ring ditches nearby - ST 91 SE 118, 119 and 174 among other - which could just as plausibly be identified with Warne's barrows). Details of Warne's excavations are as follows: Warne's tumulus 15 (Grinsell's Gussage St Michael 7a) - 6 feet high, composed of chalk and flints with some earth. Off centre, on the south, was a pit containing burnt bones and,a t its base, a skeleton with two flint knives. 16 (7b) - 6 feet high, chalk and flint mound. 2 feet from the surface were two skeletons and a flint arrowhead. 17 (7c) - a low, flat mound with an adult crouched inhumation just below the surface. 18 (7d) - 5 feet high, again earth and flints. In the centre of the mound was an upright pottery vessel. Nearby to the northwest was a pit cut into the natural chalk containing potsherds and calcined bones, surrounded by charcoal and "black mould". 19 (7e) - Chalk and earth mound again, but no height given. After removing the mound, he found 6 pits cut into the chalk, two of them containing some potsherds, the rest "disclosed deposits of burnt bones and ashes". 20 (7f) - previously explored by one of Warne's labourers, who had found a large pottery vessel which was destroyed in attempts to remove it. There is a reference to its "contents" but these are not described - presumably a cremation? The labourer had also found a pit containing calcined bones and potsherds. 21 (7g) - flint and earth again, and once more no height given. According to Warne, it was "found to be quite unproductive".